Displacements can also occur in donations, albeit probably less starkly than with jobs, which are discrete units. (...)
Agreed! This is a good point. I think many causes are still very funding-constrained (e.g. animal welfare and global health and poverty, at least), though, so this effect would be pretty negligible for them. This is a concern for less funding-constrained causes.
Also, in the example you gave where about 10% of people highly prioritize cause A, wouldn’t we expect the multiplier to be significantly larger than 0.1 because conditional on a person applying to position P, they are quite likely to have a next best option that is closely aligned with yours?
Yes, this might be true for the next position Q which A would take. However, the effect there might be small in expectation anyway (before discounting) if it’s another displacement to another position that would have been filled anyway, rather than a displacement into earning to give or into an otherwise unfilled position, and subsequent effects in the chain are discounted more, approaching a factor of 0.1.
Agreed! This is a good point. I think many causes are still very funding-constrained (e.g. animal welfare and global health and poverty, at least), though, so this effect would be pretty negligible for them. This is a concern for less funding-constrained causes.
Yes, this might be true for the next position Q which A would take. However, the effect there might be small in expectation anyway (before discounting) if it’s another displacement to another position that would have been filled anyway, rather than a displacement into earning to give or into an otherwise unfilled position, and subsequent effects in the chain are discounted more, approaching a factor of 0.1.
I’ve updated the section to clarify. Thanks!